Traffyck: The Thrilling Sequel to Chernobyl Murders

by Michael Beres

  “They come to me, Boris … or should I call you Chief Investigator?”

  “Boris is fine,” said Chudin, taking a straight-stemmed pipe from a rack on his desk.

  “When did you switch from cigarettes to a distinguished-looking pipe?” asked Janos.

  “Some time ago,” said Chudin, beginning the elaborate routine of cleaning and filling the pipe. “The guard at Mrs. Patolichev’s apartment said you were there late last night. Did you extract information beyond that of Inspector Nikolai Kozlov’s report?”

  “I did not see Kozlov’s report.”

  “But you were there during questioning,” said Chudin, lighting his pipe.

  “She gave additional information concerning the ages of the kidnappers. Although they acted younger, she guessed they might have been in their twenties.”

  “Did Mrs. Patolichev tell you anything else?”

  “She does not use her married name. She prefers Mariya Nemeth.”

  “Very well. Did Mariya Nemeth add anything else?”

  “She says there was something spoken by the young woman concerning the young men not normally acting as they did with, and I quote, ‘us’—which implies another young woman was there.”

  Chudin placed his pipe in a wooden holder on his desk. “Was that all?”

  “Yes.”

  Chudin fingered his curls. “I’m wondering if this is all fakery.”

  “Your hair or Mariya Nemeth’s story?”

  Chudin frowned. “Perhaps I should suspend my cooperation with you.”

  “I apologize, Boris. I was reacting to the assumption my client is lying.”

  “A logical assumption, Janos, especially regarding an ex-stripper who marries the owner of a pornography business. The building burns down with him inside, a gas can at his side, and there is a sizable insurance policy. The insurance company questions the claim, and next she is kidnapped by invisible young people and conveniently dumped blocks from home.”

  “I was there when she arrived, Boris. I believe her.”

  “Perhaps she is an actress.” Chudin waved his hand. “Janos, you were always a moody fellow who followed his instincts. I think this time you are wrong.”

  “What about the car that followed her at the airport?”

  “A car follows her out of the airport with hundreds of other cars, and this is important?”

  “The car is back in Kiev after I followed it many kilometers out of the city. It is a rental, probably under a false name.”

  “Janos, I know you are a skilled investigator. But there is not enough to build a case. With no case, I cannot keep the guard on Mariya Nemeth.”

  “How long will you keep it on?”

  “Until the end of the week. If more pressing matters evolve, I will let you and your client know before the guard is removed.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One more thing, Janos. I suppose because of your office being bombed, the SBU has made inquiries.” Chudin smiled. “How are your wounds?”

  Janos stood, pulled gently at the seat of his slacks. “Several pieces of glass are still beneath the skin. Who at the SBU is interested?”

  “Yuri Smirnov at the Kiev office,” said Chudin. He picked up his pipe, puffed at it, but it was out. “Janos, you must be more careful about implicating priests in the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church, or SBU deputies. A Mafia exists, and there are complex interconnections among high officials. When you associate Father Rogoza with the source of explosives, neither the Mafia nor the SBU is pleased.” Chudin stood. “I’ve said enough, Janos. Good morning.”

  Before Janos left, Chudin poked at his hair, smiled as he became aware of it, lit his pipe, and disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.

  A clerk at Borispol Airport’s Metro Vehicle Rental office said the young woman who returned the tan Zhiguli station wagon was perhaps twenty, had straight black hair, a thin face, and no makeup. She wore a blue sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans. After returning the car, the woman took a bicycle from the station wagon and rode away. The clerk considered this odd because of heavy traffic around the airport. The clerk said the bicycle was violet in color.

  The name used on the rental car form was Stella Putin. The address was in Darnytsya, and the car had been rented for three weeks. When Janos followed his GPS to the Darnytsya address, he found an empty lot.

  On his way to see Investigator Arkady Listov, whose office was in the Darnytsya militia district, Janos called Mariya to ask how she was.

  “I am somewhat stiff, probably from being hung in the van like aside of beef.”

  “You should see a doctor.”

  “No,” said Mariya. “But I’ll take another hot shower.”

  “Has anyone called?”

  “Arkady Listov. He said you were meeting him for lunch.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He wanted to know if there was anything he could do. I told him you had agreed to take the case. He said if I felt I needed a private investigator, you were one of the best.”

  “How kind of him. I hope he has information to help me live up to his claim.”

  “Janos, I’m glad you stayed with me last night. I needed someone here.”

  “Would you like company tonight?”

  “Yes,” said Mariya, without hesitation.

  “I’ll bring dinner. Before I go, I have one more question. I only saw your bicycle at night, in the shadows, and then in the hall in your apartment. It was difficult to see its color.”

  “Violet. It was the only one like it in the store.”

  “One more thing,” said Janos. “Does your bicycle have an odometer?”

  “Yes,” said Mariya. “It’s mounted on the front wheel.”

  “Would you be able to tell if some kilometers were logged on the odometer during the time you were being held in the van?”

  “I never thought of that,” said Mariya. “It has a reset button, and I always reset it to keep track of the distance on my rides. Wait a second.”

  Janos put down the phone for a moment and swerved to avoid a stalled truck. When he picked up the phone, Mariya was already on.

  “Janos?”

  “Yes, I’m driving in traffic. Go ahead.”

  “The odometer is at 40.7.”

  “Forty kilometers? How much of that did you put on yesterday?”

  “All of it.”

  “You rode forty kilometers in one afternoon? Do you always ride that far?”

  “Not always,” said Mariya. “It’s my way of burning off tension. But about the question you asked, I’m not sure. I think there could be an extra few kilometers.”

  “Do you watch it that closely?”

  “When riding, one keeps track of kilometers, and thinks,” said Mariya.

  “Is it possible someone else might have put on the extra kilometers?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’m almost certain of it. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

  “Will this dinner you are bringing be included in your bill?”

  Janos laughed. “No, as they say in America, we will eat it on the house.”

  Because he still had time before his meeting with Arkady Listov, Janos pulled into a parking space and took out his notebook with the numbers he’d copied from Aleksandr Shved’s “Adults Only” file. The first two numbers he called were other adult bookstores in Kiev. The proprietors of both stores were smooth-talkers unwilling to cooperate with a private investigator.

  The three other numbers he called puzzled him. They were private residences, and he tried to present himself as a public official, asking how long the person had lived at the address and other personal information. Two were women, seemingly hardened toward unsolicited calls. What was unusual, however, was they did not immediately hang up. Instead, they kept asking what he wanted. And the way they asked, with anguish in their voices, he felt they expected something from him, perhaps information concerning them.

  The man he called
kept interrupting and demanding his name. Finally, Janos said, “Aleksandr Shved.”

  “What?” asked the man.

  “Aleksandr Shved,” he said again. “Do you know me?”

  “Yes,” said the man, his voice distant and weak. “But this cannot be Shved.”

  “I am a friend of Shved’s. I was wondering if you know why your name is in—”

  But the line had gone dead, and he was not certain whether the cell signal had been interrupted or the man had hung up.

  Unlike the frenetic activity of central Kiev militia headquarters, Investigator Arkady Listov’s Darnytsya office was near the river in a park-like setting. Listov was waiting in front of the office when Janos drove up. He had seen Listov a few times at central headquarters, but it had been many months. Listov was a few years older than Janos, but standing at the curb he looked much older. His face was red and fleshy, his eyes shallow. When Listov got into the car, Janos could smell the sourness of alcoholism.

  Listov selected a nearby dark restaurant that served generous glasses of vodka. They sat at a table in a windowless corner. Janos ordered tea and borscht. Listov ordered borscht and a second vodka.

  “I need to ask a serious question, Arkady. What did Viktor Patolichev say was troubling him?”

  Listov put his glass down. “Did I say something was troubling him?”

  “His wife, Mariya, said he was troubled by something, and you were his close friend.”

  “I had not seen him in weeks. I am the one troubled … by the fire.”

  “Do you have any idea who set it?”

  Listov stared into his half-empty glass. “I may have implied something … but I do not.”

  “So, Arkady, my comrade, why are we here?”

  Listov took a sip before answering. “We are here because Viktor and I were friends before I joined the militia.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Listov put down his glass and looked up at Janos. “Everyone has secrets from when times were more difficult. Those days after the Union broke up, all was in turmoil. We thought business was business. Much of the time, we didn’t know what … we didn’t know what the children were for.”

  Listov took another sip of vodka and, this time, continued staring at his almost-empty glass. “We were young ourselves. Those above us had power. We were simply middlemen, but we were also boys. We had no idea the children would end up trapped in other countries, or that we would someday see them in films.”

  “Pornography?” asked Janos.

  Listov finished his drink. “Pornography and prostitution. We recruited friends for the trafficking industry. We told them stories of wonderful jobs in other countries. We fed them to the machinery of pornography and trafficking. But no more! We were boys. As we grew older, we realized our mistakes. If you can believe me, this is part of the reason I joined the militia.”

  There were tears in Listov’s eyes.

  “What about Viktor?” asked Janos. “Did he return to this so-called machinery?

  “The machinery came to him,” said Listov. “Those in control of pornography and trafficking put pressure on Viktor. When he failed to yield to their pressure, they burned him to death. I saw Viktor destroy material sent to him … videos he was supposed to sell.”

  “Do you know who the distributor was?”

  Listov waved his hand. “All I know is Viktor limited his material to the same shit anyone can access in back rooms of bookstores. Viktor’s business survived only because there are fools who assume painted-out windows represent greater perversion.”

  “Did Viktor mention specific fears he had?”

  Listov handed his empty glass to the plump waitress, held up a finger, turned back to Janos. “Mariya must have told you he spoke in his sleep. I can verify this because when we roomed together, Viktor said things in his sleep … and also when he was awake.”

  “What did he say?”

  When the full glass of vodka arrived, Listov took a gulp. “Viktor spoke about his boyhood being hell. In his sleep, he spoke of God’s punishment as if he deserved it.”

  “Anything more specific?”

  “He mentioned an orphanage. He said one needed a boat to get to it. He drew me a symbol for it. It was simply a circle with an X filling the circle.” Listov took a notebook and pen from his pocket and drew the simple symbol. “It is funny I should remember this.” He continued staring at the symbol. “When I asked Viktor what the symbol meant, he said it was a symbol for death. It is like this these days, Janos. Traffickers grow weary of recruiters, so instead they kidnap. Girls are dragged off, flown into far-away airports, marched across fields at borders, all of it to wear them down. They used to wait at orphanages until orphans were too old to stay, and then they would ask the girls if they wanted work. Not these days. In other countries, they call all of our young women Natashas no matter what country of origin. The Americans think they are boss, but they do nothing but assign numbers to countries …” Listov trailed off, obviously becoming drunk.

  Janos continued. “The symbol Viktor drew … If it were a cross instead of an X, it would be the symbol for Opus Dei.”

  Listov simply stared at him.

  “Do you think Viktor had a death wish?”

  Listov looked up and smiled a drunken smile. “Perhaps this is the answer.”

  After dropping Arkady Listov off and watching him wobble into the militia office, Janos drove to his new office in north Podil to see if all was well. It was a first-floor unit the size of an overlarge coffin. As he stared at the entrance from across the street, he could see someone had taped a small sign in the window, red capital letters scrawled on a brown sheet of paper. He could make out only the words “Orthodox” and “stone.” He watched and waited until he was satisfied no one else was watching the office, thought of the rock group Rolling Stones, then got out of his car and crossed over.

  The sign taped to the outside of the window read:

  Office of Gypsy who attacks our beloved or

  thodox leader. Let he who is without sin cast the

  first stone.

  Devout Supporters of Father Vladimir

  Ivanovich Rogoza In the lower corner of the window, near the door, were several spider-webbed holes, apparently made by the first stones.

  Janos did not go into his office. Instead, he turned to cross the street. When he did, a car sped around the corner and came toward him. Its horn sounded. It was an old Zil, its massive chrome grill growing larger as he turned and dove back to the curb. The huge car rumbled past, its exhaust hissing like a snake.

  Another horn sounded as the Zil turned left in front of a car in the distance. Before he could react, the Zil was gone. A black Zil with tail fins.

  He ran to get to his Skoda. No license plate; the Zil had no plate! He was sure of it! When he finally got the old Skoda started and made a sputtering U-turn on the narrow street, he knew the Zil was gone, but he still drove up and down side streets, becoming angrier and angrier and recalling Mariya saying the man in the van had said to watch for traffyck.

  Janos knew he should not have gone there. His state of anger left him unprepared. But he did go. He went to Father Vladimir Ivanovich Rogoza’s office in the Moscow Patriarchate Ukrainian Orthodox Church building amidst cathedrals and government buildings in central Kiev, and made a spectacle of himself.

  He drove like a maniac, swerving through traffic, his mind made up there was a connection between Rogoza and the bomber who blew his old office window into his ass. Rogoza’s people were after him. The Moscow Patriarchate had gone insane.

  When Janos arrived, he walked up the stairs to the second floor past two men in dark suits before they could stop him. The men followed him into the office, then grasped his arms and shoulders. Rogoza sat with his jeweled fingers intertwined atop his desk, his beard and ecclesiastic hat perfectly straight. Janos slumped in total disarray, held by two bodyguards.

  “Allow him to speak,” said Rogoza in Russian. “Does he know a
civilized language?”

  Janos shouted in Russian. “You should have them put me in the street and hold me down so you can personally run me over with your Zil!”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t even know who you are.”

  Janos tried to step forward, but the two guards held him back. “My name is Janos Nagy!”

  “Am I supposed to recognize this name?” asked Rogoza, pulling at the tip of his beard.

  “I’m a licensed investigator! There is a threatening sign at my office with your name on it! As I read the sign, a large Zil, the kind you ride in, tried to run me down!”

  Rogoza stared at him for a moment, folded his hands on his desk again, and said, “I thought investigators were supposed to ask questions, Mr. Nagy. Not make threats.”

  “Very well, I have one for you. What is the difference between a cult and an Orthodox religious group?”

  Rogoza stared at him a moment more, then sneered and motioned toward the door.

  As Janos was being dragged through the outer office in front of a gawking young secretary with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes, Rogoza shouted to him from his office.

  “I want you to know, Inspector Nagy, all of this is on tape! I am certain the authorities will be interested in your behavior!”

  After the bodyguards dumped him on the sidewalk, Janos sat there for a moment and watched as a bus rolled past. The people in the bus stared at him with sad faces as he pondered his fate, wishing he were with Anatoly the Cossack back in the Carpathians heading to Nikolaev, where they would find jobs building ships.

  The van was parked across the street from a car rental agency specializing in executive vehicles. Leonid, in his red baseball cap, sat in the driver’s seat, while Lena sat in the passenger seat. Katerina sat on the floor in the back of the van. They awaited Semyon’s return so they could begin the long drive back to the garage on the left bank, and then the boat back to the peninsula where Lena would finally see Nadia. If they did not leave soon, they would have to stay overnight somewhere. Lena did not want another overnight stay because her time of month was near.